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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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UNITED TATES OF AMERICA. 




( 



STATEMENT OE FACTS, 



BETWEE N 



MR. AUGUST VENCE, 



AND 



MRS. EUPHEMIA MORRIS VENCE. 



THIRD EDITION. 



THE LIBRARY 
Or CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 

y^-i . ,■ I . n ' '■ "A 



& 



TO THE PUBLIC. 



New-York, 24th June, 1858. 

I have, up to this moment, refrained from appearing before you, 
from motives of delicacy, a high sense of honor, and a dislike to 
notoriety, particularly a shameful and disgraceful one, preferring to 
pass by unnoticed and in silence the long, continual, and comlined 
slanders and malicious falsehoods so widely and lavishly circulated 
about the country and city by Mrs. Yence and her family against 
me, as my defence would have involved disclosures of private and 
too sacred facts between her and me, which have been and should 
forever have remained buried in our own breasts, and hidden from 
the scrutiny of a censorious world ; but, as my forbearance only had 
the effect of emboldening them in their works of iniquity, invented 
for the purpose of covering her own guilt, and calculated to deceive 
you as to the true state of the case, and place me before you all 
in the most unfavorable position, and blacken my fair fame — I deem 
it now, therefore, my duty, in justice to myself, to my honor, and 
to " truth," since they have driven me to this extremity, to smother 
the fond appeals of my own heart, forego ail other considerations, 
painful as it is to me, and refer you to the following brief, but true 
and unvarnished statement of facts, leaving it to your conscience 
to judge between her and me. 

It is true that being a comparative stranger in those parts of the 
country, and undefended by a single voice of truth, their one- 
sided stories were naturally believed and calculated to enlist your 
sympathies in their behalf; at the same time I feel confident that 
when the truth is known to you, and the motives that actuated 
their vile cours3 made apparent and proven, that you will at least 
judge us with impartiality, and give justice where it is due. 

I cannot help calling your attention, in the first place, to some 
very flagrant inconsistencies in their conduct, in this instance, to- 
wards me, as also in their usual pretensions, which, on reflection, 
suggests the suspicion, on your part, " that there is a negro in the 
fence " somewhere. For is it probable, is it consistent with their 
pretensions, and is it even natural, that Mrs. Yence and her family 
would so readily, gratuitously, and unreservedly have exposed and 



forced their own private affairs and mortifications themselves on a 
class of people for whom they have always entertained, expressed, 
and manifested the greatest contempt, were they not conscious of 
some hidden facts in the back ground, to which guilty conscience 
rivets your gaze, and makes them tremble like cowards before the 
ghastly spectre of a murdered victim, and which they vainly seek 
to hide from their gaze by the flimsy veil of falsehood and slanders, 
purposely invented to deceive you, and to impress you " in time" 
with the apparent truth of their stories, that your mind may become 
so fashioned to their purposes, and remain so prejudiced against 
me, as to reject, afterwards, all other evidences to the contrary 
when I am called upon to claim a hearing from you? 

Such conduct would have been deemed unwise, unnatural and 
foolish, even on the part of those in lower stations in life than they 
are, and even in accordance with the proverb that " dirty linen 
must be washed at home." You may rest assured that had I been 
u all they choose to make me out now, and worse even," and they 
" innocent" and free from all conscientious reproach, they, out of 
pride, if nothing else, would have hushed up their mortifications, 
disappointment, and shame, and smoothed my '* faults" and hid 
them from your gaze, as cunningly as they have hitherto loudly 
praised me to you all, and deceived you with regard to my true cir- 
cumstances and relations with Mrs. Vence. No ! Again I say, 
they never would so readily have trumpeted our private affairs, and 
slandered me to the four corners of the State of New- York — the 
more base and cowardly, as they struck in the dark and blindly, 
knowing I was two hundred miles off, unable to contradict their 
falsehoods on the spot and proclaim the " truth ;" and those who 
were present, and who should have done so, had not the moral 
courage to do it. 

I have borne with Mrs. Yence's most wanton and heartless out- 
rage on me in New- York with forbearance and in silence, trusting 
only to the laws of my country for justice and redress in due time, 
convinced as I am that her strange conduct proceeded from the in- 
stigations of this mischievous woman, Fanny Masters, who, like 
a bird of ill omen, came to ray house uninvited, with the inten- 
tion of bringing sorrow and desolation into our happy home, took 
advantage of her sister's excited state of mind, in consequence of 
her advanced state of pregnancy, to work upon her feelings, advise 
her and frighten her, in order to carry out her fiendish and auda- 
cious designs, (for some old grudge she owes me, for reasons best 
known to ourselves and a Portuguese, alias Mr. Smith,) hoping, as 
I did, that, after the birth of our child, Mrs. Yence would have 
come to her senses, regret her folly and injuries to me, and shake 
off the pernicious, miserable, and baneful influence of that mali- 
cious woman, whose only object and pleasure has ever been to see 



3 

and make all within her reach and around her as unhappy, unloved, 
and disappointed in life as she is herself, and will ever he ! 

But it was with no little surprise (not only at the reports which 
shortly after their arrival in Butternuts began to reach me of the 
most foul slanders they were circulating about me there) that I was 
actually shown and read a letter six pages long, containing the 
most unheard of lies against me that the mind, however debased and 
corrupt, could think of, which Mrs. V. and Fanny Masters, no doubt, 
deceived their mother, in spite of her conviction, into writing, to a 
certain clergyman in this city — going even so far as to make im- 
aginary quotations against me from the letter of a mutual friend of 
ours here to Mrs. V., which Mrs. Morris pretended to quote from the 
letter, but which the writer assures me she never wrote. However, 
I treated these reports with the contempt they deserved, and looked 
upon part of Mrs. Morris's long letter as the production of her ro- 
mantic imagination, in consequence of two much " novel" reading, 
hoping that they will soon get tired of their unjust and profitless 
occupation. 

At the same time I found some excuses in my own heart for Mrs. 
Morris's slanders and abuses of me, being, as I know they were, 
ignorant of the real, state of affairs between Mrs. V. and myself; 
still, knowing me so well as she and they do, or pretended to do, and 
to judge from their exalted opinion of me to others, I think she was 
too precipitate in condemning me without a hearing, an explanation, 
or even an investigation of some kind, which is the divine privi- 
lege and right of even the greatest criminal, before he is condemned. 
But I was at a loss to comprehend how Mrs. V., knowing all she 
does, should so . far have forgotten herself, and so recklessly to 
trample upon the laws of nature, human and divine, as also on all 
other considerations, and force me before a public and court, and 
compel me, in self-defence, to make disclosures, which are neces- 
sarily important links in the chain of evidences of the falsehood of 
all their accusations, and which her own common sense must tell 
her will be ruinous and damning to us, in spite of her assumed 
boldness. 

Heaven knows I have done all in my power to avoid the publi- 
city of our " private affairs," and have even humiliated my manly 
pride, by writing the most affectionate letters to them, even after 
all she has done me — that I might have been spared this painful 
task, at which my honor, principles, and nature revolted. But no f 
They still continued to heap insults on injuries. I then wrote to 
Mrs. Vence a letter of recrimination, reviewing all the past of our 
lives, from the beginning of our singular acquaintance to the last 
hour we lived together, recalling to her mind and memory reminis- 
cences which should have slumbered and been forgotten — reminis- 
cences which should have been rendered doubly sacred to us by 



the solemn vows of interchanging love we have sworn to each 
other. The honds which bound us together, the priestly benediction 
which twice sealed the record of our alliance before Grod and men ; 
the quickening influences of a new life, the fruit and pledge of our 
union, should have consigned them to an eternal oblivion ; or de- 
cency, and due consideration for our families and children, should 
have suggested to her woman's heart to screen from the world's gaze. 
She received it, well remembered its too true contents, and still 
trusting to my forbearance, wrote to a certain agent of hers here, 
to dissuade me from the course I threatened to pursue, if she compel- 
led me. Yet misconstruing my silent forbearance into acquiescence, 
they continued still to slander me, not only by systematic visits to 
different villages for that purpose, but actually ''posted" me, by a 
system of writing "letters," to several persons in this and other 
cities, and through the States, with whom they never corresponded 
before. 

Still reluctant to appear before the public in my just defence, and 
knowing that the family were wholly ignorant of our intimacy and 
the causes of our marriage, I was determined to do my whole duty, 
that they might see the misfortunes which her unwise conduct will 
bring upon us, and consider well before plunging headlong into that 
vortex from which they might escape, and disabuse their minds of 
the many errors into which they had fallen in regard to myself, 
and which I had allowed to pass for her sake, and enclosed her 
father a copy of parts of the letter I had written her, with this note 
attached : 



"New-York, 29th April, 1858. 
Mr. Richard Morris, 

Butternuts : 

" My Dear Sir — I have up to this moment refrained from address- 
ing you in relation to the unfortunate state of affairs existing between 
myself and wife, (your daughter,) and was in hopes that moral sen- 
timents might kindle in her heart a proper appreciation of the mis- 
fortunes which her unwise course has precipitated upon us. lam 
well aware, sir, that being her father, your sympathies are all with 
her, and naturally so, and in the same proportion your indignation 
is strongly aroused against myself. Feeling that great and unjus- 
tifiable injustice has been done me by misrepresentations by those 
who should have blushed to do so, I feel it a duty, which I owe to 
myself and to you, sir, to give you a true history of my acquaint- 
ance with my wife. 

" I wrote her a letter, reviewing the past in our lives since we 



became acquainted. I have re-copied it in substance, and herewith 
enclose it to you. It is with regret that I do so, as the contents of 
its pages should have remained a profound secret between her and 
myself, but her folly has decreed it otherwise. I hope she will not 
herself compel me to make them matter for public scrutiny and 
observation, which seems to be their impending fate. You will no 
doubt be assured that the statements of that letter are all false ; 
but you may rest assured they are all founded in truth, and my 
wife and Mrs. Masters know that they are. 

u I regret paining you by the perusal. The letter was only in- 
tended in the first place for the perusal of my w T ife, but reports so 
injurious to my character as a man, are continually reaching me 
from the country, that I deemed it a duty to awaken you to the 
truth. Your own memory will probably recall many of them. I 
do not wish to make matters which should be sacred, public pro- 
perty ; but, if compelled in self-defence, rest assured that I shall 
not hesitate in doing so. I do not say this as a threat, but as a re- 
sult towards which I see every circumstance directing its course. 

" I wish you to regard the within as confidential ; I enclose it to 
you as a man of honor, and the father of my misguided and deceiv- 
ed wife. It was a duty I owed you ; I have discharged it with re- 
gret, and remain " Your ob't serv't, 

" Augustus Vence." 

Which letter, together with the copy, I enclosed to a gentleman 
in Butternuts, requesting him to deliver it to Mr. Richard Morris, 
and." nobody else." 

Mrs. V. and Mrs. Masters failing to get possession of it indirectly, 
and unwilling that their father should know the truth, induced him 
to write a note to that gentleman, requesting him to return it to me 
unread, which he did. By which act, I ask you now, whether my 
responsibility has ceased or not ; and whether they are any longer 
entitled to my forbearance and consideration. And lastly, if I am 
not called upon, and fully justifiable now, after six months of pa- 
tient and forbearing endurance of their atrocious slanders and per- 
secutions, to proclaim the truth, and vindicate my honor. Let 
your conscience answer me. There is not another man as bitterly 
wronged and abused as I have so unjustly been by Mrs. V. and her 
family, and having the facts to prove my innocence within my 
hands, who would not have " come out" in his just defence long 
before now ? But that was just the reason why I forbore, as also 
for my infant child's sake, and its future prospects, for I love my 
unfortunate child. They knew all that, and hence abused my for- 
bearance. However, the Rubicon has been passed, and my honor 
must be vindicated. 

It would be an impossibility for me to attempt to enumerate here, 



and contradict, one by one, their numerous, endless, and different 
false charges and foul slanders, as it would fill volumes, and occupy 
longer time than I feel inclined to waste on them and this contro- 
versy ; but I will enumerate a few. Amongst the numerous false- 
hoods circulated by Mrs. Yence and her family, she and they report 
that I represented myself to her and them, to be " rich," and that 
she has found out now (mind you, only now !) that I am poor, and 
have not got a u penny " in the world. Secondly, that Mrs. V. mar- 
ried me to please her family, and that she never loved me. Thirdly, 
Mrs. V. swears, in her affidavit to the court, that I obtained three 
hundred and eighty-six dollars from her, on false pretences. 
Fourthly, that I fainted in the yard, when she refused me, and it 
was Mrs. Morris who took pity on me, and told Euphemia she must 
marry me — and then she too took pity on me. Fifthly, that when 
she refused me, I had gone into the village and had my coffin 
made. Sixthly, that I ill-treated her in the most shameful manner, 
because she would not buy a carriage and two thorough bred horses for 
me to sport with. Seventhly, that I had over three hundred pairs 
of pantaloons, twenty-four coats, ten overcoats, fifty pairs of boots, 
and other articles too numerous to mention, bought with h er money. 
Eighthly, that I squandered, with a lavish hand, Mrs. V's u for- 
tune." Ninthly, that I dressed four times a day, and walked up 
and down Broadway the whole day, instead of working. Tenthly, 
that I was a " rascal " and a " villain," &c, &c, together with 
other slanders against my honor and character. 

Now, so far from these assertions being true, I can and will prove 
by Mrs. V. herself, Fanny Masters, and Mary Tuckey, besides 
other witnesses, that Mrs. V., then Mrs. Saltus, was a perfect 
stranger to me, until the hour I was seated by her side, on the af- 
ternoon of the 7th of May, 1856, on the sofa, in the private parlor 
of her boarding-house, No. 832 Broadway. It was Mrs. Saltus 
who first drew my attention, about the beginning of May, by first 
bowing, and afterwards kissing her hands at me, from her parlor 
windows, which I, of course, as a young man, returned. After a 
few days of this outside flirtation, she, one afternoon, as I was 
passing her house to go to mine in Fourteenth- street, being, as 
usual, at the window, beckoned to me to come in, and sent Mary 
Tuckey across the street to call me. Mary said to me : " Sir, that 
lady at the window wants to see you." I replied, " Who is she ? 
She replied, " Her name is Mrs. Saltus ; she is a widow lady." 

I, of course, complied with the request, and went into the house. 
I met in the parlor two ladies dressed in mourning, who intro- 
duced themselves to me, and made some apologies for the " bold" 
manner in which they made my acquaintance, the elder lady ob- 
serving at the same time, " My sister has taken a great liking to 
you, and has been wishing to make your acquaintance for some 



time." I immediately recognized the " sister" as the person who 
had been bowing and kissing her hand to me, for the past week. 
I took a seat beside her, and after a few moments conversation, I 
got up to go, when both those ladies handed me their cards, on 
which was written, " Mrs. Euphemia M. Saltus," and " Mrs. Frances 
J. Masters." After which I handed them mine ; and not till that 
moment did I ever know Mrs. Saltus from Mrs. Masters. 

Mrs. Saltus, in handing me her card, invited me to come and see 
her that evening. I left them, and went forthwith to a lady friend 
of mine, showed their cards, and inquired if she knew them, and 
who they were ; at the same time relating the circumstance of our 
singular acquaintance. Receiving a reply in the negative (all of 
which I can prove by this lady, who is willing to give her testimony 
of the fact,) I went to my own home, and after dinner visited 
Mrs. S. again. Mrs. Masters immediately left the room as I came 
in, saying, she was going to see a friend of hers, and observed : 
" Mr. V., you must not go till I come back." 

Mrs. Saltus and I were left alone, and in the course of conversa- 
tion, she observed : " I suppose you think it strange of a lady in- 
troducing herself to you ; don't you think there is some excuse for 
her if she is in love with you ?" I replied, that I did not consider 
it out of the way ; that a lady, if she loved, had as much right to 
tell a man she loved him, as he had to tell her. Mrs. Saltus there 
and then declared her love for me, saying, that seeing me pass her 
door, every day, she took a great liking to me, and conceived a 
strong attachment for me ; observing also, " I have seen you often 
go into the Union Square Post Office, and I went there to inquire 
of the Post Master if he knew your name, that I might have writ- 
ten you a note to come and see me ; but he did not know it. So, 
you see, I had to introduce myself." On my part, I received those 
overtures with pleasure, of course, as any other man, young and 
gay as I was, would have done ; though, I must admit, not with- 
out some surprise and suspicion, for it was an nnusual thing. 
Yet I admired her plain honesty of heart and apparent sincerity, 
and, emboldened by her own advances, on which, I admit, I put a 
wrong construction then, I put my arms round her, and kissed her, 
saying, " I am grateful to you for your love, and I will love you in 
return ;" of course, never thinking but that this was a mere flirta- 
tion, and a caprice of Mrs. Saltus, peculiar to some women. 

I visited her again the next evening, and while sitting by her side 
on the sofa, and Mrs. Masters on the opposite side at a distance, a 
lover of Mrs. Saltus came in, whom she whispered to me " she was 
going to get rid of, for meP Jealous, perhaps, at seeing me so close 
to her, and whispering, some angry words passed between Mrs. 
Masters and him. It is strange, but nevertheless true, that in this 
case, also, it was Mrs. M. who undertook to dismiss him, and in- 



8 

suited him in my presence — dares she deny it ? — after which he 
left the room abruptly. The next day he wrote Mrs. S. a threaten- 
ing letter of exposure, and at the same time demanding his presents 
back, which were returned by Mary Tuckey, such as linen cambric 
handkerchiefs, jewelry, books, flowers, &c. Mrs. Saltus looked dis- 
tressed that evening, and on my inquiry as to the cause, told me 
that the man had written her an insulting letter, and that she had 
sent for her agent. Presently a certain Gilbert M. Speir came in. 
She had a private consultation with him, and the matter was com- 
promised with the man through this fellow. Mrs. Saltus had to 
move forthwith from her boarding-house, and went the next morn- 
ins, Friday, the 9th of May, 1856, to board at the New- York 
Hotel. 

While at dinner-table, at my house, that afternoon, Mary Tuckey 
brought me a note from Mrs. Saltus, informing me that she had 
moved that day, and wanted me to come and see her there, which 
I did, and every day and night since our acquaintance. 

My heart then was free, and, by degrees, I returned her love 
with as much sincerity as my affectionate nature was capable of : 
on her part, she took every opportunity, not only to assure me of 
it, but to show it, even in public ; which many can testify to. The 
next evening, Saturday, after her removal to the hotel, I visited 
her as usual ; and while sitting by ourselves on the corner sofa of 
the parlor, Mrs. Saltus proposed marriage to me, after assuring me 
of her unchangeable love for me. I replied : " Mrs. Saltus, I 
thank you for your kind offer ; perhaps you think I am a rich man — 
i" am not. My business does not yield me enough yet, to justify me to 
marry, and support a wife as I would like to do." She replied : " I am 
happy to hear you speak so frankly and so honestly ; but you need 
no fortune nor income to marry me. I would marry and be happy 
with you, if you had not a dollar in the world, and would go with 
you to the end of the world. I have a fortune of my own, ample 
enough to support both of us, if you will share it with me. I love 
you, and will be happy with you. If you will accept part of it, and 
put it in your business, it will enable you to make a larger profit, 
and thereby contribute to our support, if you are too proud to ac- 
cept of mine." I replied : " I am grateful for your love and kind- 
ness to me ; but I never would marry a woman for her money, no 
matter how much I loved her" (for I swear before Grod and man, 
that the thought of a marriage with Mrs. Saltus never entered my 
mind). She replied : " August, it is foolish and unkind in you to 
say so. I have humiliated myself to you. There is nothing un- 
usual in a man marrying a rich woman. You are too young yet 
to have made a fortune ; you will be under no obligation to me at 
all : for if I furnish the money, you work with it, increase my in- 
come, and support me and my children. I wish I was poor — perhaps 



then you would have no objection." I replied, " "Well, let us wait 
awhile then, and think over it ; you may perhaps change your 
mind." 

This conversation I repeated to some friends at the time, and 
will prove it by their testimonies ; for it is not likely that I 
would have foreseen, two years ago, what would have come to pass 
now ! The next evening, Sunday, I spent the evening, as usual, 
with her in the parlor. About 10^- o'clock, as I was bidding her 
good night in the passage of the hotel, we walked to the window, 
and Mrs. Saltus observed : " Oh, how cold it is blowing ! you will 
catch cold without an overcoat ; I will run up stairs, and get you 
a shawl to throw over your shoulders." She did so. I thanked 
her, observing : " I will return it to-morrow, when I come up." 
And she replied : " Very well ; if you don't find me in the parlor, 
I will be in my room, upstairs." On the next day, Monday after- 
noon, about 6* o'clock, I went to the hotel accordingly, and not 
finding her in the public parlor, and thinking she had her own par- 
lor upstairs, I went right up, agreeably with her own suggestion, 
and knocked at her door. She replied : " Come in." I was ushered 
into her bed-room, and, thinking I had made a mistake, I excused 
myself. I found Mrs. Saltus dressed, and reclining in bed. 
She remained in that position for a few minutes, and then got up, 
and asked me : " Has any one seen you come in ?" I said : " No." 
And she said : "I will lock this door ; somebody might come in, 
and find you here," and took her seat on the side of the bed. Our 
situation, as you may naturally conceive, was both a pleasant and 
an embarrassing one for a few moments. Here I was alone with, 
and in the bed-room of, the woman I loved, and who loved me. 
The nature of our situation naturally enhanced those feelings, in 
which we have often indulged when in the parlor alone, and by 
ourselves. How much more so now, when alone, unseen, and un- 
restrained ? And, in the next few minutes, we sealed our vows of 
love with that pledge and token which bound us as one at once be- 
fore God, though no prayers hallowed our union. From that mo- 
ment we continued to live as such, and became almost insep- 
arable, passing every and the whole night in each other's arms, 
in her own bed-room, at the hotel (with two or three exceptions), 
as also under her own father's roof, in Butternuts, where I was a 
guest at times. 

On the night of the Boone Children performance at the hotel, at 
about 9|- o'clock, Mrs. Saltus, sitting beside me, whispered to me : 
" Come, let us go up to my room." We got out in the passage, 
and found it crowded with people. I observed to Mrs. Saltus, that 
I could not possibly attempt going up without being seen, for there 
were too many people. So, I said to her : " Let us go to an assig- 



id 

nation house/* She replied : " "Well, wait ; I will go up, and get 
my bonnet and shawl." 

On our way down the street, she observed : " Let us go to an 
up-town one." I said : " No ; they know me up-town, and some 
friends might see me, and recognize you through me." At the 
same time, I asked her : " How do you know there are assignation 
houses up-town?" And she replied : " Oh ! I have heard so." We 

went to No. street ; when, in dressing herself, after one 

and a-half hour's stay, she swallowed a pin, which, as she well re- 
members, distressed us both, and we hastened to the hotel. 

A few days afterwards, she proposed to me to go to Philadel- 
phia, and pass a week or two with her, which I would have been 
glad to do, but had no one to attend to my business for me during 
my absence, and I told her so. She afterwards suggested a clan- 
destine marriage to me, and even asked Frances Masters, in my 
presence, " if it would not be just as good ; and to which Fanny 
replied, " Certainly." I replied, "that it would be better not to 
do it in that way." I will not deny, though I loved her then, and 
knew she loved me, still I hesitated to marry a woman whom I 
knew nothing about, except from my own experience and know- 
ledge of her, and that, you must agree with me, was not a very fa- 
vorable one. Besides, why should I marry ? Did she not already 
bestow on me all that a woman could give a man ? Was she not 
already my wife, at heart, and in deed, though no earthly minister 
joined our hands together ? and is it probable that, after declining 
her offer of marriage, previous to our intimacy, that I would ac- 
cept it "after?" and furthermore, to say nothing of my own sense 
of a wife's virtues — for, surely, I have too much experience not to 
know that a virtuous woman w T ould not, so soon, and so readily, 
have submitted to my embrace, though I admit she loved me, as a 
palliation, but that w*as not all I required of a wife. 

Were these, I ask you, no proofs of her love for me ? And would a 
woman have given herself so entirely to a man, a stranger, as J was 
then to her, or even a lover, after six day's acquaintance, unless she 
really and passionately loved him ? For, if I take Mrs. V. by her 
words, that she " did not love me" then, am I then to understand 
by this avowal, that she only made use of me to satisfy a base pas- 
sion, and took to her bosom nightly, for the space of five months, a 
man she did not love ? 

There might have been some excuses for her errors, were love 
the tempter ; but without that, where is her excuse ? Where is 
her blush ? Alas, let us throw a veil over that passage of our lives. 
However, Mrs. Saltus left New- Fork for Butternuts on the 2d 
June. We corresponded daily, sometimes twice a day. In all her 
letters she continued to manifest and express her love for me, in the 
strongest terms, and her loneliness there without me, and urged 



11 

me to come to her. After four weeks of her repeated and urgent 
invitations, backed by accusations of inconstancy to her, &c, I 
went up on the 28th, and arrived there on the 29th of June, at 
about 10 o'clock at night, for the first time, at Mr. Morris's, in But- 
ternuts. 

That night, while she was in bed with me (where she was, from 
that night, in the habit of coming after the family had retired) she 
questioned me " why I had not come up before." I replied, that I 
had not been very well, besides having had some pressing business 
I could not neglect. She replied, " I don't believe you ; there is 
some other reason. I guess some other woman kept you in town ; 
if I knew her I would kill her." She insisted on my telling her the 
truth about it ; and to satisfy her, I told her that I had some re* 
sponsibility to meet which I could not neglect, and which was the 
truth. She replied, " Oh ! was it a note you had to pay, and if 
so, why did you not write to me about it? I would have sent you 
an order for the amount ; I would give you $2,000 or 83,000 to put 
in your business now." I replied, that I did not want her money, 
as I always did; for in view of our intimacy we spoke pretty plain 
to one another. She replied, "Have you no confidence in me? 
Are we not one ? Who has a better rmht than me to lend or <nve 
you money ? Am I not as much your wife already as if we were 
married ? She was right ; I said no further about it. 

After a pleasant stay there of about ten days, passing every hour, 
day and night, in her company, and by ourselves most of the time, 
as the family can testify, I returned to the city on Monday, the 
7th July. 

The night previous to my departure from the country, Mrs. Sal- 
tus came into my bed-room as usual, and, before going to bed, hand- 
ed me a letter, and said: " August, please deliver this letter when 
you arrive in New-York ;" at the same time handing me a roll of 
notes, saying, "Here are $86 in notes, I collected from my farm 
rent ; I have no use for it here, take it and use it." I told her I did 
not want it. She insisted, and said, " You are foolish ;" so I took it 
and locked it in my trunk. On my arrival in New- York I delivered 
the letter as requested, and was preparing to leave, when the person 
observed to me, " I have an order to pay you $300, for account of 
Mrs. Saltus." This surprised me, as I did not ask for, nor expect it, 
and had plainly told her I did not want it ; which act, on her part, 
I must admit, was a generous one, though of itself not particulaly 
so, considering our relation to one another. 

Two or three days after my arrival here, she, in one of her let- 
ters, said to me, that her father, in looking for a sheet of paper in 
her desk, during her absence, found a copy of that letter-order, and 
made a great fuss about it, and she finished by saying, " Send me 



12 

your note for the amount, that I can satisfy him ; thinking that we 
are engaged, he has already said something against it. You know 
Pa thinks more of money than he does of anything else." 

So I sent her the note accordingly, hy the return mail, and we 
continued our correspondence as usual. 

Of course, had Mr. Morris known the relation hetween his daugh- 
ter and me, he would have thought differently of this transac- 
tion (though in any way, and to say the least, it was no "business 
of his, as his daughter was not a young girl, hut a married woman, 
and old enough to know and mind her own husiness); and I, as a 
man of honor, could not, with any possible excuse, have gone and 
betrayed Mrs. Saltus to him, for the sake of exonerating myself, 
even if my life was at stake. At the same time, in our hearts, we 
were satisfied ; for again, I say, even if I had asked her to lend me 
money, I had a right to do it, by virtue of our relation as man and 
wife-— I will not say "mistress," and desecrate now the feelings which 
then bound our hearts in happy union together — for those past happy 
hours, the happiest, because they were sinful, rise now before me, 
like phantoms from the grave of departed happiness and hopes, to 
cheer the desolations and hopelessness of the present. 

Does this, I ask you now, look like obtaining money under false 
pretences ? And what were the pretences, pray ? Did Mrs. Saltus 
not know that I was a poor man ? Have I not told her so ? Has 
she not been at my office, 88 Wall street, and satisfied herself ? Alas, 
that she should have gone so far as to parade before a Court, trans- 
actions which took place in the sanctuary of a bed-chamber, ren- 
dered still doubly sacred, as we were not married ; and so gratui- 
ously to have exposed our private affairs to the public, particularly 
as it is altogether irrelevant to her suit for separation, or anything 
else — only convinces me, and every one else, that her object is to 
tarnish my character and insult me, and proves her malice, and 
want of decency and delicacy ; for there is not another woman, 
however common, who would thus outrage and insult a husband, 
and while his unborn offspring was still mingling with her own 
heart's blood ; — the more shameful, as she knew in her own heart 
that she was swearing to a most blasphemous falsehood. However, 
in the course of our correspondence, and about two days after this 
" loan " explosion, Mrs. Saltus writes me : " I am afraid I have a 
little August somewhere, as I am a great deal beyond my time," 
&c. I was not surprised at it ; besides, it was her constant wish, 
from the very commencement of our intimacy, to have a child by 
me. As she used to say, " I want to have a little boy by you, 
with black eyes, to look just like you ;" so I answered her accord- 
ingly, with some jesting remarks about her situation. In her 
subsequent letters she confirmed it, saying, " August, I am sure 



13 

I am in the family- way now," and betrayed some uneasiness. I 
wrote her immediately, and by some natural instinct I observed to 
her, not to risk her life or health by any attempt to get rid of the 
child, but that since it was so, I would come up and marry her, to 
enable her to keep it ; that a few week's difference would not be 
noticed, particularly if she went to Europe, as she told me at first 
she intended to go, and the child could be born there. I must ad- 
mit that this circumstance wrought a change in my feelings, which 
is natural, I believe, to all men. I loved her already. I was a 
guest under the hospitable roof of her family. I saw and learned they 
were respectable people ; her two children became dear to me. 
She loved me and trusted me. Taking all these circumstances into 
consideration, could I with conscience, with honor, or justice, have 
refused to marry her and legitimize my own child ? No ! I could 
not ! So I went up to her, and arrived on Friday, the 18th July, 
at Mt. Upton, where I had my traveling trunk put down, and which 
was already in my room, intending to stop at Greene's Hotel, dur- 
ing my sojourn there, as I felt a delicacy to go to the house after 
the explosion of this money transaction, and accordingly wrote a 
note to Mrs. Saltus immediately on my arrival. She immediately 
answered my note, telling me, " Never mind Pa, come straight to 
the house, for I want to talk to you on matters more important than 
that." Which note was brought and handed to me by her own 
father, Mr. Richard Morris, himself — and can he deny it ? Ij then 
took Mr. Morris aside, and told him then, as I do now, that he had 
taken a wrong view of that affair, and perhaps conceived an erro- 
neous opinion of me; that I never asked for it, but that she herself 
offered it, which I refused, and it was actually sent to me through 
a letter to her Agent, of which I was the innocent bearer. Which 
explanation, injustice to myself, I deemed it my duty to make to 
him, and with which he appeared perfectly satisfied, and said to 
me, " Come home, don't think any more about it," and took me 
home in his own buggy with him. 

On my arrival at the house, I found Mrs. Saltus as usual in her 
feelings towards me, yet apparently laboring under some mental 
excitement, which she was trying to conceal from the family. After 
dusk she proposed a walk down the lane, to talk the matter over, 
and what was to be done. While sitting on the grass and talking, 
she became very excited, threatened to destroy herself rather than 
her family should discover her situation, and know our intimacy, 
at the same time observing : " Pa will never give his consent ; and 
if I marry you against his consent, he will cut me off his will, and 
if I don't, what shall I do with the child ? (We did not think of a 
clandestine marriage in this case, as it would have been of no use 
to her.) Being the partner and sharer of her shame and troubles, 
and witnessing her tears of despair, which she gave vent to, my 



14 

heart must have been stone did I not feel for her, and share in her 
troubles. I loved her then better than my life — ay, and I suffered, 
Heaven knows how deeply ; and under the weight of these com- 
bined feelings I was taken suddenly sick. 

When I recovered enough during midnight, I found her in bed 
with me as usual, and saw an object lying on the floor at some dis- 
tance, near the door, which, she told me, was Mary Tuckey, who 
slept there in case I should want anything during the night. She 
again began to talk over the matter. I finished, by proposing to 
her a clandestine marriage, and abide the consequences ol her situ- 
ation by that. She readily consented, and the next morning we 
both communicated our resolution to Mrs. Masters, who, knowing 
already much of our affairs (as well as Mary Tuckey,) entered into 
our plan, and offered to go with us as witness ; and on the follow- 
ing Monday morning, at 9 o'clock, the 21st July, 1856, we three 
drove to Smyrna, (stopping at a small place on the road ; had some 
milk and cakes, and inquired from the woman who kept the house 
if there was any minister in the place ; to which she replied, " No ! 
there is none nearer than Smyrna;") and Mrs. Saltus and myself 
were married there at half-past 2 o'clock, in the private sitting- 
room of the clergyman, in presence of Mrs. Masters and two other 
witnesses, under the assumed names of Augustus Francis and Mrs. 
Mary Jones, of Utica, and Mrs. Masters signing her name as Julia 
Jones. (Francis being my brother's name ; Mary my mo- 
ther's name, and Julia my brother's wife's name ; all of which 
names, and Utica, were arranged on the road before we got to 
Smyrna, so as to avoid all suspicion or publicity to this marriage. 
The other witnesses, a young minister and young lady, were 
brought in by the officiating clergyman, as he said, " I like to have 
my own witnesses to this, for my own responsibility's sake." Af- 
ter the ceremony was performed, he wrote and handed me the cer- 
tificate, of which the following is a copy, sent me some time ago : 

u This certifies, that on the 21st of July, 1858, in the village of 
Smyrna, New- York, I married a gentleman by the name of Augus- 
tus Francis, of Utica, to a lady by the name of Mrs. Mary Jones, 
of Utica. 

" L. Hartsough." 

(The original of this certificate, together with several old letters 
of Mrs. Saltus to me, had been abstracted from my private travel- 
ing desk, in my trunk, which .desk Mrs. Y. broke open during my 
absence from the house, by wrenching the lock from the desk, in 
order, no doubt, to destroy all proofs of her own guilt in black and 
white, as her own conscience told her I might use them in self- 



.15 

defence. However, I wrote to the minister and got another cer- 
tificate ; besides, I have several friends here who saw the original 
one, and will testify to it.) After receiving the certificate from the 
minister, I took out a $20 gold piece to give him, when Mrs. V. 
(as she became then) took me gently aside, and said, " Don't vou 
give him so much, he will suspect we are "somebody," and they will 
talk about it, and we will be found out ; give him $5, and that is 
more than he ever gets." So I accordingly handed him a $5 note, 
and we left, stopping at Norwich to dine, and returned home at her 
father's house, in Butternuts, about 8 o'clock that evening. 

It was agreed then between us, that we should keep this mar- 
riage a secret, and abide the result of her situation. No member 
of the family, besides Mrs. Masters, knew of, or suspected this clan- 
destine marriage, except Mary Tuckey, who knew pretty much all 
that was going on, as she told me the very next day that she sus- 
pected it, and also from the fact of my calling Mrs. V., sometimes, 
Mrs. Jones, out of fun about the house. 

In the meantime, Mrs. V. had tried various means to get rid of 
the child, much against my wish and advice to the contrary, for 
these reasons : 1st, that her life or health might be jeopardized by 
the attempt ; 2d, that I thought it unnatural, cruel, and sinful ; 
and 3d, that, since it was so, I thought we might as well keep it — 
which I explained to her. It was then agreed, that if she kept the 
child, we would, in that case, go immediately to' Europe, and give 
birth to it there ; and we both proceeded to make preparations ac- 
cordingly ; and continued to live as usual, with the knowledge of 
and openly to Mrs. Masters, until the day we were married, for the 
second time, at her father's house, on the 19th September, 1856, 
(and which the family, to this day, suppose to have been our first), 
and started, one hour after, en route for Europe. 

Some time previous to this second marriage, and while in New- 
York, Mrs. V., in one of her daily correspondences with me, wrote, 
that she had attempted, and at last succeeded in procuring, an 
abortion, by strong medicines and over-hard exercises ; and said : 
" Don't be angry with me, pet ; you know we will have plenty more 
by-and-by. I am weak still. When you are ready, come up for 
me, as I am all ready, and have made up my mind to go." 

After regulating my affairs, I left a few days after for Mrs. V.; 
got married, and left for Europe. 

Now, I have given you a plain, straightforward, and truthful 
statement of our history, from the hour of our acquaintance to our 
second marriage, and I call on High Heaven to witness the truth of 
every word I say ; and I challenge Mrs. Y. to deny one single word 
in it ; and I, furthermore, challenge her to show either my letters 
to her, or hers to me, to the public — if their contents will not corro- 
borate all I say, and more, too. 



16 

No ! she cannot, she dare not, hush the everlasting reproaches of 
her guilty conscience, though her false lips may belie her own heart's 
convictions! and trusting as she does, to the unholy, unjust, and 
dishonorable expedient of falsehood, to conceal the truth, which 
God Himself has witnessed, and recorded in heaven. 

Do these evidences, I ask you, look like Mrs. Saltus never having 
loved me, and married me to please her family? And, as an in- 
stance of the utter falsehood of these assertions, were we not mar- 
ried privately, two months previously to the second marriage, and 
of which the family, to this day, are ignorant ? And again : Did 
Mrs. Saltus obtain her family's consent to live with me ? and did 
she do it to please them, long before I ever heard of or saw them, 

or they me ? 

Secondly, Does it look like I represented to them that I was rich, 
as she falsely swears I did in her affidavit ? If I did really re- 
present myself to be " rich," and was suing, as she says, for her 
hand and heart, is it at all likely or probable that I would be such 
an unmitigated ass, as to go and expose myself to her, by borrowing 
money from her, and such a paltry sum as that, when I could easi- 
ly have borrowed it, and more, too, from some one of my numerous 
friends here, had I wanted it ? 

Ao-ain : Is it likely that I would need represent myself to her 
" to be rich," after declining her offer of marriage, and part of her 
" ample fortune " to work with, telling her that I was a poor man — 
and while I was actually living with her ? 

And still again : If Mrs. Saltus did not know that I was a poor 
man, would she have paid a great portion of our trip to Europe her- 
self, and which money she drew from her agent here ($2,000) 
three weeks before we were married for the second time ? Why 
need she have done this, if, as she falsely alleged, she thought I 
was rich ? Why did she not expect me to defray all these expen- 
ses ? She dares not answer ! ! The whole story is so preposterous, 
so unlikely, so devoid of common sense, that, turn it which way 
you please, it carries the falsehood on the face of it. 

So far from needing to represent myself as "rich" to Mrs. Saltus, 
in order to get her to marry me, I swear, that I never meant to, or 
had the slightest thought of, marrying her, until her delicate 
situation rendered it necessary, to preserve her own reputation. 
For, were I disposed at all to marry, it is not likely that I 
would have overlooked many beautiful, rich, virtuous, and young 
ladies of my acquaintance, suitable to my own age, and " run 
mad" to marry a woman six years older than myself, with two 
children, and with whom I was already intimate, and so gratui- 
tously take the responsibility of such a large family on my shoul- 
ders, unless I was compelled to do so, and her promises of helping 
me to work with a portion of her ample fortune. 



17 

But suppose, for argument's sake, we admit that I was as " poor 
and penniless" as Mrs. V. and her family now rejoice in publishing 
to the world, so much the more shame then for her, and so much 
the greater still her guilt, to have deceived me into this intimacy 
and consequent marriages, by her depravity, her base deceit, al- 
lurements, false protestations of love, and false representations of 
her wealth, and not to have complied with her promises and offers 
to help me to work when she got me ! 

It was a shameful fraud on her part, practised upon me ; for she 
knew in her own heart that she was deceiving me, that she had 
" no fortune at all" and which I will now prove by documents from 
the Surrogate's Office, with other facts endorsed by her own hus- 
band's brother, Mr. S., the administrator of his father's estate. 

" Copy." 

" Know all men by these presents, that we, Euphemia M. Saltus,"' 
" Richard Morris and Frances M. Morris, are held and firmly bound 
" unto Richard M. Saltus, of New- York, a minor, under fourteen 
"years of age, in the sum of ten thousand dollars, lawful money 
" of the United States, to be paid to the said minor, his executors, 
" administrators, or assigns, to which payment, well and truly to 
" be made, we bind ourselves, our and each of our heirs, executors 
"and administrators, jointly and severally and finally, by these 
"presents. Sealed with our seal. Dated the 27th April, 1855." 
" The condition of this obligation is such, that if the above 
" Euphemia M. Saltus shall and will faithfully, in all things, dis- 
" charge the duty of a Guardian to the said minor, according to 
" law, and render a true and just account of all moneys and property 
" received by her, and of the application thereof, and of her guar- 
" dianship in all respects, to any court having cognizance thereof, 
" when thereunto required, then this obligation to be void, else to 
" remain in full force and virtue." 

" Signed, " Euphemia M. Saltus, 

" Richard Morris, 
" In the presence of " Frances M. Morris. ' 

" Wm. C. Bentley, of Butternuts, N. Y." 

As to Richard and Frances M. Morris, 

" State of New-York, County of Otsego. 

"Richard Morris, the within named, being duly sworn, doth 
depose and say, that he resides in Butternuts, Otsego county, and 
is worth the sum of ten thousand dollars, over and above all his 
just debts, liabilities, and responsibilities. 

" Signed, Richard Morris. 

" Sworn before me this 27th April, 1855, 
Wm. C. Bentley, Justice of Peace." 

3 



18 

" State of New- York, County of Otsego. 

" Frances M. Morris, the within named, being duly sworn, doth 
depose and say, that she resides at Butternuts, Otsego county, and 
is worth the sum of ten thousand dollars, over and above all her 
just debts, liabilities, and responsibilities. 

" Signed, Frances M. Morris. 

" Sworn before me this 27th April, 1855, 
Wm. C. Buntley, Justice of Peace" 

A similar bond was given by the above parties for the payment 
of the other $10,000, coming to little Anna Saltus, as her one- third 
portion out of the -$30,000, of her father's estate ; and with Mrs. 
Saltus's one-third portion of $10,000 makes in all just the $30,000, 
as the whole of their three shares together in the estate. Of these 
$30,000 coming to them, Mr. " S." tells me that he has paid 
already to Mrs. Y.'s agent here $15,000 on account, of which 
the agent says he has paid $8,000 to Mrs. V. in three years. 
So that, at best, when the balance of $15,000 shall be paid in by 
the executor (which he informs me he don't know when it will be) 
Mrs. V.'s share will be but little over $2,000 (interest inluded), 
out of the $10,000 her husband left her. So that you can plainly 
see, and easily satisfy yourselves, by referring to the copy of this 
document at the Otsego County Clerk's Office, as also from Mr. 
Wm. C. Bentley, that Mrs. Yence's boasted wealth amounts to 
about $2,000 only. Her former husband had : ' nothing" himself; 
his father died, and left about $240,000, to be divided among his 
wife and seven children ; of which Mrs. Y.'s former husband was 
the " eldest," and being dead, she and her two children come in for 
his one-eighth share on the $240,000, which makes exactly 
$30,000 — or $ 10,000 a piece to each of the three, as per above bond. 

Here it is, as plain as daylight, and cannot be contradicted, for 
any one is at liberty to go, whenever they choose, see and read the 
whole will, documents, &c, &c, free gratis, at the office of the 
Surrogate, in the city-hall, New- York, where I got minute copies of 
all these. Now, whether Mrs. Y. has been led to believe that she 
had more than she really had, or whether she willfully misrepre- 
sented her circumstances to me and others, for the sake of boasting, 
I am not prepared to say now ; but this I would ask Mrs. Y., where 
are her $80,000 she deceived me she had ? and Mr. Morris reports 
about the country that she is worth it; for I am sure the farm- 
house and the 120 acres of her " broad lands" (?) at Morris, which 
her father gave her as her portion, when she married her first hus- 
band, are not worth over $3,000. Where, then, are the $80,000 ? 
Where did she get it from? I challenge the whole family to dare 
answer my question ! How then could she so shamefully deceive 
me, and " bamboozle" the country people as to her wealth, and 
with hypocritical affectation to turn round now, and pretend to say 
that I deceived her, and misrepresented my wealth to her ? 



19 

But, more generous and magnanimous than herself, I will, for 
argument's sake, in order to place myself on the same level with 
her, assume here that I misrepresented my " wealth" to her ; in that 
case even, it would be " diamond cut diamond," and neither of us 
would have anything to complain of. Now, I ask a just, honora- 
ble, and impartial public, have I been deceived or not? Have I 
been duped and shamefully taken in by that artful woman, or 
not ? While they, with false affectation and hypocritical cant, lay 
their sins at my door, and pretend to be the injured party, instead 
of me. Alas ! where is justice ? where is honor ? where is truth ? 

It is true I did not care what she had, as a proof of which I have 
got nothing from her ; at the same time had she told me the truth 
that she had " nothing" but $3,000 or $4,000— we would have 
understood each other ; I would have remained here and ivorked, 
instead of "breaking up" my business, losing my time by going 
with her to Europe, and there spend what " little" I had ! and re- 
turn here during a fearful crisis to " bund up" a business " anew," 
in the expectation of ample assistance from her ! Now, these are 
no "idle words," these are facts ; take them to your own heart, 
place yourselves in my situation, and then judge me. 

It is true she offered me the homestead at Morris, last fall, to 
sell, and invest the proceeds in my business, with her usual saying, 
t{ When Pa dies we will have plenty." But I would not touch that 
property, and I wrote her " to hold on to it for a rainy day ;" and 
I preferred to work harder than I have ever done before while 
single, and economized in my household, as well as in my personal 
expenditures, that I might support my family comfortably without 
touching her little property, and I did so. 1 do not mention these 
facts for the sake of exonerating myself from their slanderous 
charges ; but I ask you as men, as husbands, as fathers, are my 
" rights" to be trampled upon, and justice denied me in the very teeth 
of truth, be I ever so poor, because my slanderers and accusers are 
women, and I a man, as if I had to blush at what God himself had 
made after his own likeness ? For, remember, at the bar of Heaven- 
ly Justice, we are all judged alike ! The world never would have 
known these facts from me, and would perhaps have remained for 
ever under the erroneous impression of Mrs. V.'s imaginary wealth 
and of my enjoyment of it, had she herself not sought these dis- 
closures by her notorious publication of matters so utterly unimport- 
ant and uninteresting to the public, and irrelevant to the case of sepa- 
tion, and compelled me by her falsehood, injustice, dishonorable and 
unnatural conduct, to expose them, injustice to myself. Her own 
conscience must tell her how untrue and pitiful are her boasts to the 
country people, of my " poverty," and other assertions of her sup- 
porting me. First, of all, she never did ; and secondly, if she did, 
it could not have been long ; for every one knows that we have 
been only three months at housekeeping, when she ran away to 



20 

Butternuts, and her " support," therefore, could not have exceeded 
my board. But even that I emphatically pronounce a rank falsehood, 
and she knows it to he so ; for I can prove by witnesses, that I have 
worked every day from morning until evening, at my business, and 
earned enough to support my family, in spite of the hard times, 
which all business men have experienced last year, and which is 
still too fresh in the memory of all. And again: even if she had 
boarded me for three months, until business had become better, and 
enable me to be more prosperous, is there anything so very extra- 
ordinary in it ? Suppose, for instance, sickness had overtaken me, 
and disabled me for a time to work, would a wife grudge the mor- 
sel she had to share with the partner of her bosom, desert him, and 
then expose and parade his disabilities and wants before the pub- 
lic ? Is that a reason, I ask you, for Mrs. Y. so shamefully to have 
deserted me, and to have so shamefully betrayed me, while her 
arms were around my neck in bed with me, and caressing me the 
very day, and even then, to the last moment sitting beside her, in 
our own bed-room, with her own child Anna on my lap, without 
suspecting her treachery, to have resorted to the most painful, most 
harsh, most treacherous, most insulting and degrading, as well as 
the most desperate, unnatural, and unjustifiable means to part 
with me, by having me then and there arrested by two policemen 
in my own bed-room, on a complaint which she falsely swore to, 
before a magistrate, during my absence at my business that day, 
and without any reason or cause for it ? And, furthermore, to have 
placed from that moment two other policemen in my house, day 
and night, to watch and prevent my coming into my own home 
until she dismantled it, carted my furniture under the cover of mid- 
night, and sold it at auction, and secretly ran away to her father's 
in the country, taking with her all my books, paintings, part of my 
clothing, hats, shoes, &c, &c, and leaving the rest thrown into a 
square box, even without a lock to it, in the middle of the empty 
floor, for me to get the best way I could ; at the same time break- 
ing open my writing-desk, in my trunk, and abstracting my for- 
mer correspondence with her, and other documents, as well as her 
likeness, which she knew too well, I might have produced before a 
court and public, in vindication of my innocence of her charges, 
and in proof of her own guilt ; besides, leaving me to pay over 
$300, for empty house rent, from January till the 1st of May, to 
my landlord, as per lease ! 

Alas ! to have resorted to all these outrages. Did her own heart 
not whisper to her that an offended God would frown at her infa- 
mous deeds, and send retribution to overtake her, soon or late ? 
Can the mind, however deeply steeped in treachery and degrada- 
tion, conceive a conduct so utterly base, heartless, and outrageous, 
and on the part of my own wife, regardless of all decency, and re- 
gardless of our unborn child, in her womb, whose smothered but 



21 

loud voice must have naturally appealed to her woman's heart, and 
pleaded for its father ? And as a proof of her false charge against 
me, the next morning after my arrest, she should have appeared 
against me hefore the magistrate, where I was awaiting her ; but 
she did not dare to do it, and waived an examination, for her con- 
science reproached her, and I was honorably discharged. 

Can she, now, look at my infant child, as its tiny arms twine 
themselves around her bosom, in innocence of its father's wrongs, 
without remorse — without a blush ? Can she silence conscience, 
when the past shall marshall her long array of ghostly memories 
before her? When the feeble pulse which now kindles at her 
breast into fuller life, shall call in mournful tones upon its mother's 
heart, to tell the history of its youth, despoiled of its beauty, by 
broken vows and shattered pledges ? Can she, I say — dares she 
brave the muffled tread of the mourning past, as its infant's voice 
shall call up in the great cathedral of her life, the high-priest of 
truth, lest its ruined arches fall and crush her ? No, she dare not 
look back to the past. 

Amongst their numerous falsehoods against me, they report that 
I have three hundred pairs of pantaloons, scores of coats, &c, 
bought with her money. Now, I would ask Mrs. Yence or Fanny 
Masters, how on earth did they manage to pack them up, with my 
other clothing, in the little two feet by eighteen inches wide box, 
they left for me in the empty house ? And if they did pack them, 
I have never either seen them before nor received them. If they are 
such good packers, I would make a most brotherly suggestion to 
Fanny Masters to get a situation in some cotton-pressing factory, 
where her talent would be of great use, and would earn enough to 
save her from borrowing five and ten dollars from myself, now and 
then, and enable her to pay me the forty -five dollars lent her till 
the twelve hundred dollars legacy of the estate of Justus Masters 
is settled, as I am " very poor," and cannot afford to be generous 
any longer. 

However, this, as well as the rest of their too numerous slanders 
against my character, honor, and reputation, are too contemptibly 
false, and do not deserve my notice, much less, contradiction. I 
will leave that task to my friends and those who know me and 
"them." 

And though Mrs. Y. may bring all her family and strangers to 
swear against me, to answer her purpose, it will not avail the actors 
in this plotting drama. I hold the key which will unravel the mys- 
terious web in which she and they have endeavored to entangle 
me. Not one of them dare meet me face to face before a Court or 
public, and swear to what they now lay the unction to their souls 
they can ; for truth will and shall prevail, in spite of all their com- 
bined falsehoods ! Of course, I know and am prepared for it, that 



22 

they will put their heads together and lie black and blue ; hut the 
attempt alone will only damn them in the eyes of a just God, and 
make them the more contemptible in the eyes and estimation of 
every just and honorable man and woman in the community. 

Educated as they are being, in what to say and what not to say, 
yet so sure am I of my guiltlessness, that I have accepted the un- 
just and one-sided decision of some " partial" judges in the coun- 
try, denying me the right of changing the place of trial to New- 
York, as it ought to have been, in the teeth of the most just and 
convincing technical ground and proofs of law, and I will meet 
them on their own ground and test the " truth" 

For if Mary Tuckey, who knows a great deal of our private af- 
fairs, and who, to the last moment advocated my innocence, not 
only to myself, with tears in her eyes of sympathy for my wrongs, 
but to others, can now turn round, voluntarily or compelled, and 
swear to the most barefaced falsehoods against me, what would un- 
scrupulous strangers not do for a consideration — people who know 
me not, and owe me no gratitude, no favors ? And to prove the in- 
consistency of her conduct and testimonies, I would ask Mary a 
few questions, and dares the toothless viper to deny them ? 

1st. — Dares she deny that she did come and call me for her mis- 
tress on the opposite side of the street in May, 1856, and that Mrs. 
Saltus and Mrs. Masters introduced themselves to me to her know- 
ledge ? 

2d. — Dares she deny that she did one night in May, 1856, at the 
New- York Hotel, while Anna was taken with the croup, comein to 
Mrs. S.'s bedroom (adjoining hers) for some paregoric, and saw me 
in bed with her mistress smoking a segar ? 

3d. — i'ares she deny that she did know that her mistress and I 
lived as man and wife, both in New- York and at Butternuts % 

4th. — Dares she deny that she told me, and told my cook and 
others, that she never heard or saw any unkindness on my part to 
Mrs. V., and that "this never would have happened if Mrs. Mas- 
ters had not come to the house ? 

5th. — Dares she deny that she did tell my cook as well as my- 
self, that those diamonds Mrs. Y. wears, were never given to her 
by Mr. Saltus, but by different gentlemen since his death ? 

6th.— Dares she deny that she told me how frightened she was 
one night, at the boarding-house in New- York, by awaking and 
seeing a man coming through the door which opened right near 
Mrs. S.'s bed, from the passage, and she thought it was a ghost at 
first? 

7th. — Dares she deny that she told me how afraid she used to be, 
at the boarding-house in New- York, when Mrs. S. used to go out of 
a night with different gentlemen, leaving her and Anna alone, and 
not return till near morning, letting herself in with the night-key 
she carried about her ? 



23 

8th. — Dares she deny that one day last summer, while putting 
Mrs. Y.'s clean clothes in her bureau-drawers, while I was reading 
in the bed-room, she saw a broken glass syringe, and exclaimed, 
" Oh my, I wonder who broke this syringe," and I looked up, and 
without thinking, said to her, "perhaps she broke it herself," and 
Mary replied, lt Oh no! I guess not ; she thinks a great deal of it ; 
has carried it about her in New- York since Mr. Saltus's death, and 
never goes out without it in a handkerchief in her pocket." (Poor 
innocent Mary !) 

9th. — Dares she deny that she knew Mrs. Saltus and myself were 
clandestinely married on the 21st July, 1856, at Smyrna, and ac- 
tually "saw" the original certificate of said marriage, two or three 
days after ? 

And lastly. — Dares Philander Tuckey deny that she found "hair 
pins" on several occasions in my bed, in Butternuts, and brought 
them to me, smiling, and jestingly observed, " I did not know you 
wore hair pins before," when I first went up there ? 

So I could dare them to meet me face to face and deny scores of 
facts and things Mary unguardedly and confidentially told me, and 
which I again challenge and dare her to lay her hand on the Holy 
Evangelist and swear " she did not," though she may perjure 
herself. 

Here is the testimony of my cook, to whom Mary told these 
things : 

"New- York, 'Slst May, 1858. 

" I, the undersigned, do hereby declare that I have lived with Mr. 
and Mrs. Augustus Vence, from the day that they went to house- 
keeping, until it was broken up, during Mr. Y.'s absence, and that 
I have never heard or seen him speak or act unkindly to his wife. 
That Mary Louise Tuckey, a nurse and servant in the house, had 
various conversations with me after the separation of Mr. and Mrs. 
V., wherein she distinctly told me that she had never heard or seen 
Mr. V. treat or speak unkindly to his wife, but that Mrs. Frances 
Masters had brought all these troubles. 

" Further, said Mary Tuckey told me that those diamonds which 
Mrs. Y. wears were not given to her by her present or former hus- 
band, but by different other gentlemen when she was a widow. 

"That I was present during a conversation between Mr. Y. and 
said Mary L. Tuckey, after Mrs. Y. had gone away, and that Mr. 
Y. never told her that "even his clothing belongs to his wife;" 
that said Mary L. Tuckey was crying of sorrow, and laid the whole 
blame on said Frances Masters, as the instigator of all the troubles. 
That Mrs. Frances Masters came down stairs into the kitchen, after 
Mr. Y. was arrested, and told me that Mr. Yence has treated me 
bad, and that I must give my testimony against him, which I re- 
fused, as Mr. Y. always treated me very well and kindly. 



24 

" Mrs. Masters was only about a week in the house, and therefore 
could not know even if he had treated any one had ; and, lastly, it 
is my belief that Mr. V. was very badly treated. 

" Margaret Q,uinn." 

Is it likely that those men would have given Mrs. Saltus those 
diamonds without receiving their equivalent from her ? No. 

That I was an unhappy man, who can doubt in view of all I knew 
and heard of my wife's antecedents ? And knowing the kind of 
woman she was, who could, who would, be so base as to blame 
me, if I had even kept a watchful eye on her conduct or move- 
ments, which, to a stranger, might have appeared " jealousy ?" If 
there is such a one, let him take a similar wife, and under the 
same circumstances, to his bosom ! Is it not natural for me to 
have supposed that, if she could have been intimate with me on six 
days' acquaintance, she very likely must have been with others 
too, and whom she knew before, better and longer than she did me ? 

Am I to have been vain enough to suppose and flatter myself 
that I was the most fortunate and preferable amongst all her ad- 



mirers 



9 



But, more unfortunate, yes, than they, I yielded to her persua- 
sions, and clasped to my bosom, " as a wife," one from whom the 
sacred " aegis" of purity had fallen for ever. And now I am left 
to reap the reward of her treachery and deceit ; to discover when 
it is too late that love is indeed of divine growth, and not the off- 
spring of mere passion and corruption. I am left upon the barren 
rocks of life to which she led me, tore-construct the slender fortune 
which was dissipated in throwing around her all that my humble 
means could bestow. "While she has placed a barrier between us 
which may lead her to new scenes of enjoyment, to the gratifica- 
tion of her desires — but each step she takes in life leads her nearer 
to the silent grave — to the great account, where the long records 
of life are enrolled, and the judgment, not of her fellow-beings, but 
of the eternal Court of Heaven is entered up against her. How- 
ever she may fortify herself here, by the thin gauze of deceit, cover 
herself with the panoply of family pride and respectability, at the 
bar of Heavenly Justice she will stand disrobed ; the thin tissues 
which she has thrown around her will fall to the ground, and there 
she will stand, discovered as she is known to me and known to 

herself. 

Apart from my own experience of Mrs. Y.'s errors, does the know- 
ledge of her antecedents even as a young lady, not justify the con- 
clusions that she is, by nature, heartless and unscrupulous ? As a 
proof of which has she not, on a mere introduction to Mr. Saltus's 
mother, at Richfield Springs, and hearing that she was " rich and 
had sons," most unceremoniously forced herself as a visitor into 



25 

the family in New- York, by writing a cunning letter to the old 
lady, pretending that she understood that Mrs. S. had written her 
an invitation to come and visit her in New- York, but that " she did 
not get the letter." 

The old lady never wrote her such a letter, and seeing the strata- 
gem, could not help answering her accordingly, at the same time 
saying that she will be glad to see her. Actually, before the letter 
was mailed, Miss Euphemia arrived, in a hack, at the door of Mrs. 
S.'s house, on the 1st December, 1846, and on the 16th of the same 
month " eloped," and was married to her eldest son, after sixteen 
days acquaintance, much to the surprise and indignation of his 
family ; so much so, that the old lady, in her rage, fainted away, 
and was seriously ill ; particularly as her son was a sickly man, and 
not able to do much, and this marriage compelled his father to sup- 
port them both with an annuity of $2,000 a year at first. Mrs. 
Euphemia Saltus rinding afterwards that her husband had nothing 
of himself, and disappointed in her expectations of a carriage to 
ride in, brown-stone house, fine clothing, and plenty of money to 
spend, &c, &c, instead of a room on the third floor of the house, 
brought troubles and discord into the family, insulted the good old 
lady, and consequently had to move from the house to a boarding- 
house. Mrs. V. herself told me she never loved him, and the 
family knew it too well also. Mrs. Y. cannot deny this, as it is a 
known fact,, and can be proved. However, there might have been 
some excuses for such conduct on the part of a girl of 16, but not 
in a woman of 25, as she was then. 

Had he lived, very likely he would have seen the day she would 
have deserted him as heartlessly as she did me, and will deceive 
and desert others after me (if she gets a chance). 

To prove still further her want of love and natural heartlessness, 
when Mr. Saltus was almost dying, Dr. Johnston, his physician, 
advised him to go South, as a last resort, to prolong his life for a 
few weeks, and requested her to accompany him, a thing which a 
true woman's own heart would have suggested to her, particularly 
as she knew he would never come back alive ; but she refused to 
go with him, and remained here in the City enjoying herself, and 
left the poor man to depart and die, alone, and in a strange place. 
The telegraph news of his death found her at the table of a dinner- 
party she gave at her own house. Can she deny this? And 
scarcely a few months have gone by since his death, but she was 
seen arm in arm in Broadway, at the theatres, opera, oyster sup- 
pers, &c, with and receiving attentions from different men, (one of 
them a known married man,) and had one in particular to break- 
fast and dine with her three or four times a week, in her own 
private parlor at the boarding-house. These facts are too well 
known in New- York to be contradicted, and can be proven by Mrs. 

4 



26 

V.'s own relations and friends (whose names I withhold now for 
delicacy's sake, until otherwise required). I am not therefore sur- 
prised at the manner she has treated me. I might have known that 
a woman who could have acted as she has throughout her life, 
would do anything on earth however atrocious. 

While living with Mrs. V. I have done my best, and partly suc- 
ceeded, in removing her from the circle and influence of some of 
her former friends, and introduced her into a more desirable sphere ; 
and to do her justice I will admit that she herself wanted to get rid 
of them, and even avoided them ; and when this trouble occurred, 
which could have been avoided by one word of good advice from a 
sincere friend, they, like a pent up torrent, rushed forward in full 
tide and annihilated all before them, regardless of her happiness 
now and hereafter. The sequel proves the truth of my remark, 
and their insincerity ; for had they been " true" and sincere friends, 
they would have advised her otherwise, and she would have been a 
happy woman to-day. However, I am willing to look upon 
my misfortunes as " destiny," and I thank God that they have come 
so early, and in the spring-time of my life, when I can profit by the 
bitter lesson she has so soon taught me. Yet it is hard to think 
they were inflicted by her, who should havo been in life a true and 
devoted friend, rather than the secret and deadly enemy she has 
proved herself to be. 

Mrs. V. is the first on earth who has ever cast a breath of slander 
on me, who has ever sought to debase me and tarnish my reputation, 
and the only enemy I have in the wide world. I am not, nor are my 
friends, surprised at her going round the country and collecting the 
very scums of the place to swear against me — people whom I 
never saw before, or spoke to, or they me. She took good care 
not to place the name of one single respectable family or person, 
either in Butternuts or Mount Upton (many of whom are ac- 
quainted with me), in the list of her thirty witnesses — for she knew 
that their testimonies could not be won by her lackadaisical tears 
or bought with her few cents. 

Her list of witnesses is a shameful fraud on the Court and on 
my just rights, for she knows that these people dare not appear to 
testify to anything, either for or against me, for they do not know 
me ! Was it not enough for her to have filed charges against me, 
which she knew to be false, without piling still more sins on her head 
by procuring false witnesses to swear to them ? And when she saw 
the number (6(>) of respectable witnesses I intend to summon to my 
defence, ladies and gentlemen, who were with us in different parts of 
Europe, at the same hotels, and in our company more or less every 
day, and who are here now, ready and willing to testify to my uni- 
form kindness to her, both abroad and here, she, all of a sudden, 
(not dreaming that I would ever have contested her most false suit) 



27 

withdrew all of her voluminous charges of my cruelties to her, pre- 
tended to have oocurred in Europe, the greatest and most import- 
ant portion and features in her suit, and ordered her lawyer, H. R. 
Mygatt, of Oxford, to stipulate accordingly with my counsel, of 
which here is a copy : 

SUPREME COURT. 

EuPHEMIA YeNCE, 

against 

Augustus Yence. ) The plaintiff hereby stipulates, that on the 
trial of this action, if the County of Otsego shall be retained as the 
place of trial, she will give no evidence of harsh and cruel treat- 
ment of defendant towards herself in Europe, or on hoard of sea 

Henry R. Mygatt, PVffs' AWy. 

In another document, too, that she wishes to confine herself to 
matters pretended to have occurred in Butternuts and New- York 
" only." Yet strange to say, she has not got one single witness 
from New- York on her list, even her most intimate friends, who 
visited her frequently, who are likely to know, and as one would 
suppose, be willing to testify, if they ever saw or heard me treat 
her, not inhumanly cruel, as she alleges, but even unkind. 

The natural conclusion, therefore, is this : If a wife overlooks 
her own friends and equals, and collects witnesses, strangers to 
her and him, to swear against her own husband, that something 
is "wrong." That single fact alone shows that woman's heartless- 
ness and corrupted principles of honor ; for no woman, however 
low, would ever have done such a thing. Of course it is true had 
she confined herself to the " truth, there would have been nothing 
to say." 

However, I challenge one and all of her witnesses to face me, 
and swear they ever saw or heard anything but kindness on my 
part to Mrs. Y. Still, to prove the falsehood of Mrs. Y.'s charges, 
I would ask you, is it likely that, had I so ill treated her, in the 
presence of her own family and people while in the country, that 
they would have let her come and live with me ; and she, herself, 
so delighted, so anxious to have gone to housekeeping with me ? 
Would you not have heard of my ill-treatment of Mrs. Y. long 
ago, through these very witnesses of hers now ? Again, and 
if her family admits now, that they did not know then, that I ill- 
treated her while in their own house, how on earth could they 
know of it now, after we have left their house, so as to bear wit- 
ness to it, as one and all of the family have done ? Is it probable, 
is it likely, I ask you, that if I really treated Mrs. Y. unkindly, 



28 

that those very " persons" who now pretend to bear witness to it, 
would have " kept quiet" about it all along, and speak about it 
" only now" — all of a sudden ? 

No ! you may be sure the whole thing is a miserably concocted 
" plot" to cover their own " guilt," and debase an honorable man, 
whose honor and truth is as much above them as heaven is from 
earth, in spite of their base pretensions. My friends, and all 
who know me, laugh at the imputation of my ill-treating even 
a dog, as my nature is quite the contrary — kind, good-natured, 
and peaceable — and the Morrisses know it ; for they have told 
others of it themselves, who are coming forward to testify to 
it now ! 

I challenge Mrs. Morris to produce Mrs. Y.'s letters to her while 
in Europe, and those she wrote her as far as Christmas in New- 
York, and show to the court or public the least allusion, of one 
single word of unkindness on my part to my wife, much less ill- 
treatment ; some of which Mr. Richard Morris himself, has on 
several occasions taken with him over to Mt. Upton, read, and 
praised me at Green's Hotel, to the by-stand ers in the tavern. 
Mrs. Morris cannot deny she has those letters, and always told me 
she intended to preserve them. They are still, I am certain, in 
the lower drawer of her yellow bureau, in her bed-room, tied up 
with red ribbon, and I challenge her to produce them ; and more, I 
go so far as to say, that Mrs. Y., in all those letters, speaks in the 
highest terms of my attention, kindness, and good care of her there. 
And if those letters have been purposely destroyed, I will be bound 
Mrs. Morris has good memory enough to remember their contents, 
and will be made to testify to them on her oath before a court 
of justice ! 

I am sure I cannot deal more generously or fairer than I do 
with them. Here is a score of them against one single man ; 
and with proofs in their own hands to prove my " pretended guilt," 
alone I meet them, and not only dare them to prove anything 
against me, but actually challenge them to bring forth proofs in 
their own hands, and yet they dare not produce them, lest they 
criminate themselves. 

Now I want to ask you, does that single instance alone, of Mrs. 
Yence's withdrawal of those voluminous charges, not prove the 
" cloven foot ?" I leave it to an impartial and just public to judge if 
this hasty retraction was not the work of a reproaching conscience, 
and a strong and too plain evidence of her guilt and falsehood, (for 
she swore to these charges,) and done to prevent my proving her 
falsehood before a court. But I insist on the trial of the " whole " 
case in full, that I may expose one of the most miserable and foul- 
est conspiracies that were ever concocted by a wife, to desert and 
degrade a husband, and to cover her own past, present, and future 



29 

guilt. She, or any of them, never dreamed I would contest this 
suit, thinking she would have the advantage over me, hy obtaining 
a separation hy "default," and furthermore that they will have the 
sympathies or the whole rural community, right or wrong, and 
saying, as she did — " Oh ! he has no means to contest it, besides he 
is too proud ; he will surely commit suicide, and that will be the 
last of it." Showing that she looked forward to my death to cover 
up her outrage. 

In these expectations, however, she has deceived herself, for I 
have not only the determination, but " means enough " to contest 
the suit, and when my means are exhausted, I will borrow, and 
when I can no longer borrow, I will beg on the streets, night and 
day, from every man and woman, so help me God, that I may con- 
test this unjust, most unnatural, and false suit, and with my latest 
breath vindicate my honor ; not with the view of preventing Mrs. 
V. from getting the separation she seeks — for Heaven knows, 1 could 
not with honor or manly pride, live, or wish to live again, with a 
wife who has so injured, so debased, and so outraged me — but to 
prove my innocence of one and all of her charges and most foul 
slanders against me, for I have done nothing to deserve this heart- 
loss and cruel treatment from her ; and even if I had treated her un- 
kindly as she says, was that a reason for such outrageous conduct ? 
No ! A true lady would have left her husband in a decent manner, 
if she even had reason to do so, and go to her family, or wherever 
she chose, and there begin a suit for a divorce (not separation), with- 
out resorting to the low and base means of falsehood and slanders, 
and such shameful publicity of our affairs. 

Need she have gone so much further, as to parade before the court 
and public, letters, which she knew I wrote to her with the mag- 
nanimous and manly intention of assuming that I had been in the 
wrong and with the single view of giving her an opportunity of re- 
tracing her steps ? Her own conscience told her this was the truth. 

Spier, her treacherous adviser, and a hypocrite, must have told 
her that he advised me to do it, and should have added, " only to 
betray me," into fortifying, by a false confession of errors, allega- 
tions which were so utterly untrue, that they could not be proved. 
It was a cunning device, played upon a husband's generosity ; but 
it will avail them nothing. 

I never treated my wife unkindly in my life ; though I will not 
deny, I am not perfect ; none on earth is, but God. I have my 
failings and shortcomings like all men, and the best of us, and may 
have a quick temper, but that is all ; not a tenth part as bad as 
many men, who live happily with their wives and families to this 
day. I have no vices ; never drink or dissipate ; I have never spent 
out an hour of a night with friends or otherwise, away from her, as 



80 



most married men do at times. I have loved her and her children 
sincerely ; I have worked hard to support them. In what then con- 
sist my great offences ? In what consists my " most inhuman ill- 
treatment of her ? Wherein, I ask yon, in the name of justice, 
have I deserved this most cruel and outrageous treatment at her 
hands ? And while Mrs. V. reflects on my honorable conduct to- 
wards her, both before and after our marriages ; the outward respect 
I have shown her, in spite of the past ; my disinterestedness in all 
that concerned the acquisition or the management of her little pro- 
perty, does her own heart not reproach her and whisper to her now, 
that rather than deserve this treatment, I deserved at least forbear- 
ance, even if I was all she pretends to charge me with now ? 

I feel disappointed and surprised at the sudden change of her feel- 
ings, for how often, and but a few days before this affair, did she 
tell ms, " August, I love you still better, because you have acted so 
honorably towards me ; if people only knew our secrets, what would 
they say of me ?" 

I never in my life reproached her with the past. She cannot now 
deny, that when she herself would speak of it, and say that I could 
not really love and respect her, after our previous intimacy, that I 
always replied : "Don't speak about it, Teene ;" "let us forget it." 
I loved her, and stronger ties would in the course of time have 
bound our hearts still closer together. It is true I was not perfect- 
ly happy, and would have wished it was'otherwise. Who can blame 
me — knowing all I did? 

Only once, I remember to have reproached her, when in conversa- 
tion she said to me, " August, we might have lived together as we 
did, without being married, and no one would have known or sus- 
pected anything about it ; and that she knew many ladies who do 
these things, and pass for very respectable persons indeed !" 

Alas, those who have passed through this stage of life can only 
know the bitterness of my position ; besides has Mrs. Y. forgotten 
Mrs. F.'s lot on the hill ? Has she forgotten the empty house on 
the other side of the creek ? Has she forgotten the parlor floor of 
Kingley's hotel in Unadilla ? I have not. 

And they were the spectres that haunted me, and brought blushes 
to my manly cheeks when I thought of them. Little did I know 
then, that those thrice happy but sinful moments would turn to 
so much bitterness in after years ! 

Of course it was my pride to bear a light heart externally, and a 
cheerful countenance, to screen from the world's curious gaze and 
her own the worm that was consuming me within, and to sustain 
my honor as a husband ; but L call on high Heaven to testify to 
these truths, and on you all to bear witness, that she herself and 
family have driven and compelled me now to these disclosures, in 
justice to myself, to " truth," and to my honor, which they have 
so mercilessly assailed, and sought to tarnish, in addition to her 



31 

already too flagrant outrage on me ; painful as it is to me, to pub- 
lish our own shame to our friends, for, naturally, I am in some 
measura the partner of her guilt, and the sharer of her shame, and 
they recoil on ourselves, and on our innocent children, whose young 
and spotless brows we have so ruthlessly branded with shame and 
disgrace, sown future sorrows in their youthful hearts, and make 
them targets for the world's finger of scorn, by her own folly ! By 
her depravity ! ! 

How different would have been our fate to-day — how happy we 
could have been, had she at the start adopted a different course of 
life; for virtue brings its reward, as well as sin its sure retribu- 
tion, on earth. Although I admit here that I am a partner in her 
guilt, I am, by no means, in her depravity. She was a great deal 
older than myself, was the mother of two children, and had the ex- 
amples of good religious parents before her, and should have known 
better ; while I was a young man, free at heart, and of an ardent 
temperament, without a mother, father, sister, brother, kith or 
kin, to advise or admonish me. I yielded to the temptation she 
put before me, by which she seduced, deceived, and then accom- 
plished my unhappiness, and, (who knows?) our eternal ruin. 

I have done my duty as a man and a Christian, and now justice 
must take its course, though, like Sampson, I perish in the ruins. 
She may thank herself, and her evil spirit, Fanny Masters, for 
these dreary and fatal consequences of her own errors and folly. 
She might have known this, and avoided it ; but no ! vanity, con- 
ceit, and presumption led and tempted her to listen to the miserable 
and destructive advices of that mischievous woman, whose poison- 
ous breath blights and destroys all she comes in contact with ; 
for Mrs. Y. told her that she had gone too far, and that I would ex- 
pose her, to which Fanny replied, " Oh ! don't fear. He won't dare 
do it. Besides, we can say he is crazy — he is deranged, and no 
one will believe him." Poor trust, indeed ! In spite of all her 
affectation, and the innocent countenance which Mrs. V. knows so 
well how to put on, she can't change the truth. 

Mrs. Masters had scarcely been a week in my house, when she 
observed to my wife, at my table, and in my presence, that " It 
was better to be a rich man's darling, than a poor man's wife ;" and 
" a good-looking woman has no excuse for marrying a poor man ;" 
and such low sentiments, for the expression of which I ought to 
have at once thrust her out of my house. Although, for argument's 
sake, I would like to know, what man, rich or poor, would make 
a "darling" of such a "dried up old shrimp" as Fanny Masters, 
while young, fresh, and pretty women abound all over the city and 
country ; and if her theory holds good, and her advices too, why did 
she marry poor Justus Masters, who left her as poor as she can be 
— to live on her father's bounty ? which, no doubt, makes her envy 
every one's independence. At the same time there is no excuse for 



32 

Mrs. V.'s weakness in listening to her ; besides, from Mrs. V.'s own 
sentiments and antecedents, her conduct justifies the suspicion that 
she left me with the view, perhaps, of " becoming some rich man's 
darling ;" for she could not do it while living with me. I watched 
her too well for her use ; and even now, what man would have 
such a woman ? 

How I could have been so blinded — so entirely wrapped up in 
her, as to have married her under those circumstances, and sacri- 
ficed my freedom, youth, hopes, prospects, happiness and honor, 
all, all, to one so base, so heartless, and so corrupt, proves that the 
power she exercised over me was great. I might have known this 
result, for when a woman has once lost her honor, she throws every 
other consideration to the winds. Veracity, feeling, fidelity, are 
alike strangers to her. She has fully illustrated these truths, for I 
do not believe there is another woman in this country who would 
have done what she has done to me, a young husband of her ow n 
choice, and with his child in her womb. No ! Hell itself can't 
produce another such. And when she reflects how she followed 
me, like an evil spirit, to destroy my peace — Juliet never loved 
Romeo more fervently, more passionately than she pretended to 
love me. Not satisfied with having me every night, and the whole 
night, by her side, but often insisted on my passing several hours 
with her in the day, to the neglect of my business ; and even fol- 
lowed me to my office, at 88 Wall street, besides sending Mary 
Tuckey with little Anna to see me. And when at last she got so 
round me, and was fairly and fondly nestled in my unsuspecting 
heart, she stung me there, poisoned the stream of my life, crawled 
away in exultation, and left me writhing under the mortal wound 
she has inflicted. 

Oh, would to Grod she had never seen me, never sought me ! 
Would that I had never listened to her tales of love, and vows of 
constancy ! 

I was happy when she met me ; my heart was free from sorrow 
and despair. Honest labor furnished me with all that a man's heart 
could wish, and a bright and happy future was before me ; but now, 
she has filled my heart with bitter sorow, blighted my fondest 
hopes, and turned my life into eternal despair ; for I will admit, 
with frankness, that it has been a difficult task for me to uproot the 
affection which ever lingers in the heart of a man for the woman 
to whom he has allied himself. 

Had she died, I could have kept the grass on her grave green 
with my tears, and her memory as green in my heart. I would have 
consoled myself that, at least, she died with her vows unbroken, and 
her errors in life would only have endeared her memory to me. 
But, as it is, I can feel the warm currents which filled my heart 
with love and affection for her, cool and subside ; and I can now 



33 

look back upon the past with coldness and indifference, contemplate 
without weakness the sacred bonds which her folly has severed — 
feel the dignity of my manhood rise above the tenderness of my af- 
fections, and disclose those things which, a few months since, the 
tortures of the secret chambers of death, constructed in the terrible 
temple of Jesuitism, could not have wrenched from my heart. But 
she has used every means to blacken my character, to heap insults 
and indignity upon me, and discredit me with my fellow-men. 
Mine be the task, now, of illustrating the truth, in the pages which 
I present to you. Would that this painful duty to myself could 
have been averted — that I had been spared the necessity of making 
these disclosures in my own defence, which her folly has forced 
upon me — that instead of the gloomy shadows which now cloud 
my path, the sunshine of happiness still illuminated it, the sweet 
voice of afFection welcomed my weary feet at eventide, instead of 
the spectres of deadly and unrelenting hatred, in a heart which 
should have vibrated with love and kindness ! 

But alas, she has not spared me, and it is not for me now to 
screen her ; but, unlike her, I will speak the truth, and nothing but 
the truth, and the truth will prevail in spite of all. 

Mrs. Vence has published throughout the country that all the 
furniture in the house was bought by her, and that she paid the 
house rent and everything, besides supporting me. I need not con- 
tradict these infamous falsehoods, but refer you to my lease and 
receipt of the house rent, long before she even came to town. 

COPY. 

" This is to certify that I have, this 22 day of September, 1857, 
let and rented unto Augustus Yence, of the City of New- York, my 
certain premises, on the south side of Twenty-sixth Street, called 
No. 62, commencing one hundred and twenty feet easterly from 
the S. E. corner of 4th Avenue and 26th Street, in the City of New- 
York, with appurtenances, and the sole and uninterrupted use and 
occupation thereof from the date hereof to the 1st of May, 1858, 
to commence this 22d day of September, 1857, at the yearly rent 
of $850, payable quarterly, in advance. 

" Signed, 

" P. Callaghan." 

" New- York, 23d September, 1857. 
" Received of Augustus Vence, Esq., "two hundred and twelve 
dollars and fifty cents," in full, for three months rent of within 
premises, in advance. 

" Signed, 

"P. Callaghan." 
5 



34 

I will not deny that Mrs. V. also bought a good deal of articles 
with her own money ; at the same time, here are my receipts for 
furniture, &c, I bought myself, some of them even before she had 
come to town, and which she so unceremoniously sold and pocket- 
ed the money. 

List of Articles purchased by Augustus Vence, and paid by him, 

as per receipt. 

1857. 

Sept. 24. 103 yds. Brussels carpet $128 75 

25. 1 mahogany rocker, 1 sofa table, 1 china tea 

set, 1 oak extension table, and cartage 52 25 

26. 1 French bedstead, 1 glass bowl, 4 glass salts, 
1 mahog. etagere, 1 p. palliasters, 1 mahogany 
marble top bureau, 1 rosewood corner stand, 1 
mahogany roll bedstead 89 94 

28. i doz. large forks, J doz. small forks, 1 dozen 

spoons, and engraving 11 26 

1 iron bedstead, 2 matresses, 2 straw beds, 1 
pillow, 1 set table mats, 4 kitchen chairs, 1 
hammer, 1 door mat, 1 candlestick, pepper box, 
coffee mill 26 43 

1 set white china dinner set 21 23 

30. 1 caddy Oolong tea, 1 barrel crashed sugar, 1 

barrel brown sugar, 1 silver castor, 4 salt 

spoons, 2 dozen knives, and engraving 72 63 

Oct. 1. 6 mahogany chairs, 1 R. "W. fancy table, 1 
mahogany table, 1 oak hat stand, 1 rosewood 
etagere, 1 oak table chair, 1 socket, 1 meter 
bracket, 8 double fold brackets, 4 sculls, 1 
chen pendant, 2 chandeliers, 1 harp pendant, 

leaf pipe, &c 179 40 

9. 105| yds. of tapestry parlor carpet, 12 J- yds. do. 
stain carpet, 6J yds. chenille carpet, 10 yds. 
twill stain carpet, 16-g- yds. oil cloth, 1^ doz. 

brass rods, 1^ doz. do. exps 182 13 

10. 1 silver plate tea set, 1 fish kettle, 1 soup, 1 
griddle, 2 tin pans, 1 cullender, 1 saucepan, 1 
cake turner, 1 tea caddy, 1 dredge-box, match- 
box, 1 dipper, 6 plates, 11 bowls and molasses 
cup 44 41 

2 pair earvers, 1 hair mattress, 1 bamboo mat- 
tress, 1 pair palliasters, 6 chairs, 1 tea tray, 

11 gold-bordered shades 74 75 

14. 1 pedestal and cartage 13 50 



35 

15. 1 rocker, 1 rosewood book-case, 2 butter knives, 

6 oak chairs 47 00 

16. 5 cornices, 2 rosewood tete-a-tetes, 2 rosewood 

arm chairs, 4 stuffed backed do., 1 lady's do. . . 224 75 

21. 6 oak arm chairs, 2 mahogany chairs 21 50 

22. 4 silver salts, 2 vases, 1 screen, 1 paper machie 

desk, 1 inkstand, 1 fancy figure, 1 shade 44 87 

23. 2 Parian figures 12 75 

Nov. 9. 1 tea tray, 1 mattress, 1 palliaster, 1 bedstead. 20 00 

Dec. 28. 1 royal Wilton rug 6 00 

$1,273 45 

Again, Mrs. V.'s gratuitous and false accusations paraded before 
a court, on a sworn affidavit, that I obtained money from her 
under false pretences, w T ith the object of blackening my character 
and covering her own, will not avail her ; for those who know me, 
(and there are thousands who do — some from my infancy up to this 
hour) know, and can testify, that I am incapable of such a base- 
ness. She is the first who has ever coupled my name with dishonor, 
and it is hard, indeed, that I should be called upon to refute such 
an infamous accusation, and from my own wife ! 

And since she has brought forward the question of personal 
honor — so far from it, I will prove, on the other hand, that Mrs. 
Vence obtained three silk, and one barege, dresses, from a poor 
dress-maker in Paris, under fraudulent representations, and for 
which offence she can be imprisoned, if she returns to Paris. 

Here is the dressmaker's bill, in black and white, so that she 
cannot deny it. 

Madame Vence, Dr. 

To Leontine Piffault., 
No. 7, Rue Joubert, Chausser D'Autin, Paris. 
1857. 
April 11. For making and trimming a salmon color 

silk dress, with white striped flounces Fr. 115 50 

19. For making and trimming a blue silk dress, 

with black striped velvet flounces 113 00 

For making and trimming a barege dress 

with flounces 55 55 

21. For making and trimming a light green 

silk dress, with flounces 97 50 

Total , Fr. 381 50 

Received on Account 150 00 

Fr. 231 50 
Signed, L. Piffault. 



36 

Which 150 frs. were given her to blind her, and she was told to 
come the next afternoon for the balance, frs. 231 50. And, to 
drown all suspicion, Mrs. V. went and got a few yards of cheap 
stuff in the meanwhile ; gave them to her, and pretended to want 
her to finish a little dress for Anna, the next evening, " without 
fail." While she was gone, we packed up in haste, and left Paris 
for England the next morning, at 3 o'clock, by moonlight — of course 
without paying the dressmaker. 

Those dresses she wears, and are known to you all. If it is ne- 
cessary, Mrs. Y. knows I can bring forward ladies, of New- York, 
who were in Paris with us, and who know and heard of this, to 
prove it. Can Mrs. Y. deny this ? Remember, the bill and re- 
ceipt are in my hands, and safe. 

But alas, I am not surprised at anything Mrs. Y. or her family 
may say or do to slander or dishonor me ; they have not even 
spared their own relatives, friends, or neighbors. Why should they 
spare me ? 

Has Mrs. Morris, herself, not repeatedly told me that she never 
lived happily with Mr. Morris ; that he had immured her through- 
out her life amongst " those common people" (meaning the Batter- 
nuts people), with whom she has no association nor congeniality. 

That he had only $600 when he married her ; that all the pro- 
perty was and is hers ; that he is an illiterate man, and unsuited 
to her taste, and if it was not for her children, she would have left 
him several years ago ? 

All this and more too, told to me, and by an aged wife against 
her own equally aged husband ! Can Mrs. Morris deny this ? 
But is there one family of respectability in Butternuts who has 
been exempt from their slanders, I would like to know ; for if they 
dare contradict this, I will disclose the nature of those foul slanders 
against the living and dead relatives of certain prominent families 
in Butternuts — things, which I could not possibly have known, or 
heard anywhere else, but from them, for I never was in the country 
in my life, until I came up there, and do not know any one else 
but them, nor even went anywhere else. 

Dare they deny that they themselves "warned and forbade" 
me, from my first visit up there to last fall, from associating with 
the Butternuts people, and particularly with "the members of a 
certain family ?" and did not Mrs. Y. charge me with " improper in- 
tercourse" with a lady there, because I violated her orders, and 
once called on that lady in the village ? And has Mrs. Y. forgotten 
that when we were about moving to N. Y., she told me in church, 
" Do not notice any of them in the village, for they will be sure to 
find out where we are in New- York, and call on us, and I do not 
want to associate with them !" And dare Mrs. Y. deny, that while 
on Broadway one afternoon in the fall with her, we met a young 



37 



lady member of a certain Butternuts family, and also a sister of 
the very brother in whose " dry goods store" in Norwich, Mrs. V. 
and Frances Masters so publicly slandered and abused me before 
all the customers, and Mrs. V. turned her nose at both of them, and 
told me " not" to recognize them ? And yet, to illustrate Mrs. V.'s 
hypocrisy and affectation, she not only courts now the friendship, 
sympathy, and " good opinion" of all those people and " natives," 
(as she used to call them), but actually had the effrontery to swear 
in her false charges against me, " that I forbade her riding out and 
associating with her friends in Butternuts ;" which, she knows in 
her own heart, as well as the B. people do, to be a rank falsehood ; 
for first of all I never did. Secondly, I was not there all the time 
to prevent her if she was so inclined. Thirdly, she was too " stuck 
up" to ride out with any one in B., even if they had asked her. 
And fourthly, no one there who had pride or independence, would 
condescend to play the " toad" or the puppy to an affected and 
conceited woman like her — and a would-be " angel." 

However, to crown her hypocrisy and audacity, Mrs. Y. writes to 
a clergyman here, that she has received, or is about receiving " the 
holy communion /" (which I suppose is another of Fanny Masters' 
advices, that it would influence public opinion so much in her 
favor, under the existing circumstances, and look well !) and 
with those hideous, unrepented, and unatoned for sins, which the 
tears of repentance of a life-time can only wash away, still fresh in 
the record of Heaven, she still dares to blaspheme and desecrate 
the altar, by making a sacrilegious cloak of God's own precious 
blood and flesh to cover her black and corrupt heart from the com- 
munity, and by false affectation of piety and repentance, deceives 
the people, still further to gain her ends. And does she not trem- 
ble while drinking the holy wine, lest it turn into " liquid fire," 
and burn out her sacrilegious heart? But even " God" is a secon- 
dary consideration to her, and this last act only confirms her hard- 
ness of heart, baseness, and unscrupulous audacity. I would not 
wonder if Fanny Masters, too, turns round and joins her sister in 
the " Holy Communion !" for I heard she goes to church now. 
Could they have so soon absolved themselves of all their sins and 
injuries to me, and of their recent threats and attempts of violence 
to my innocent, then unborn, child, whom both of them told my 
cook and a certain clergyman, then guest of and a perfect stran- 
ger to them, that they did not want my u brat" and that they were 
going to send it to me, the moment it- is born ;" and though at the 
time of this speech Mrs. V. was expected to be confined at every 
moment. She had even the indecency and heartlessness not only 
to express her hatred to the innocent unborn in her own womb, but 
went so far as to actually tell the clergyman that she loved him 
better than she did me ; thus directly making improper advances 
even to a clergyman, and a father of a poor and large family. Dare 



38 

Mrs. V. deny this ? and can Mrs. Y. account for the two quarts of 
blood she threw up from her mouth, one evening, while the clergy- 
man was there, which was doubtless the effect of her desperate but- 
vain attempt to kill and get rid of the child, even at that late pe- 
riod of her pregnancy, when her confinement was daily expected ? 
Those threats and attempts on the life of my child reached me ; and 
the moment it was born (which fact I learned from strangers) I 
gave Mrs. V. " fair warning" that I knew of her designs, and that 
I will prosecute her criminally if a hair on that child's head is 
hurt. They became alarmed ; accused innocent parties of " wri- 
ting to me what passes in their house," at the same time pretend- 
ed to love and think so much of the " child;" but at heart they 
would ill-treat it, or " dispose" of it, if they dared ; but they know 
my hawk eyes are on them, and that they are watched. 

And that child shall live, and will live to pity and scorn them in 
after years. And lastly, while Mrs. V., with the most barefaced 
affectation was preaching her " virtue" to her unsuspecting listen- 
ers, she was, at the same time carrying on a secret correspondence 
w T ith a married man in New-York, whose letters she would not even 
trust to her father to mail for her, but took them herself with Mary 
Tuckey in a sleigh, amid deep snow and cold weather last winter, 
to the Mt. Upton post-office, under pretence of " taking an airing." 

Can Mrs. Y. deny that, too ? I suppose she will deny everything, 
of course, but I challenge her to lay her hand on the holy Evange- 
list, and dare to swear that my statements are false ! 

Mrs. Y. and her family must remember, I have got a good 
memory, and can remind them of "facts" which they think I have 
forgotten, and they take advantage of my supposed forge tfulness. 
I also still retain some friends in Otsego co., whom all their lacka- 
daisical tears and pennies can't buy, or their malicious slanders pre- 
judice ; and those here scorn her and her family. 

I embrace this opportunity to acknowledge receipt recently of 
Mrs. Y.'s doctor's bill for $12, for attendance during and after her 
confinement in Butternuts : 

Copy. 

August Yence 

1858 To James Secor, Dr. 

March 1. Yisit and attendance on wife 8s $1 00 

" 7. Yisit obst. wife (confinement) 40s 5 00 

" 8. Yisit and med. and advice 8s 1 00 

" 9. Yisit and advice 8s 1 00 

« 27. Yisit and med., babe 8s 1 00 

" 31. Yisit and med., babe 8s 1 00 

April 4. Yisit and med., babe 8s 1 00 

" 10. Advice and med 8s 1 00 

Total $12 00 



39 

It looks strange, indeed, that after six months of desertion by a 
" wealthy" wife, of a " penniless" husband, and after her ill-treat- 
ment, slanders, abuses of him, and at this very moment, suing for an 
" eternal separation," that Mrs. V. should have the " face " to send 
such a bill to me, and for such a small amount as $12. It only proves 
and confirms her shamelessness, the falsehood of her slanders, " that 
I was penniless and she supported me," and want of that innate 
pride which she vainly struggles to affect, but does not possess. The 
question now arises, " If I really was so poor, and had to be sup- 
ported by Mrs. V., would she tax my pocket " now " for her doctor's 
bill of $ 12, for the first time, after we have been separated six 
months ? Why, it is preposterous. 

Were I Mrs. V., after all that was said and done, if I had not 
the money to pay that bill of $12, I would have sold my last 
" shirt " to pay it ; out of pride, if nothing else. 

I would " starve," or " rot," ere I would let Mrs. V. know it, 
much less send a doctor's bill for her to pay ; and to prove which, 
I will ere long disclose the tale of my sufferings to you, for these 
last six months, endorsed by numerous friends and witnesses, that 
will strike to the root of your hearts. And yet, if one drop of water 
from their leprous hands could change my sufferings to the most ex- 
alted bliss, I would scorn it, and prefer eternal woes. 

Mrs. Y., I hope, won't pretend to say now that this bill was sent 
without her knowledge or permisson, for it is not likely Dr. Secor, 
who is a member of the family, and knowing our separation and 
difficulty, would send a bill for $12 to me, 200 miles off, without 
her order. Nonsense ! 

Before I finish this, I would say two words still. H. R. Mygatt, 
Mrs. Y.'s lawyer, has published, sometime ago, " what he pretends 
to call his ' opinions ' of our controversy," in pamphlets, but in fact 
a gross libel and slander against me, and a most rank series of false- 
hoods, which was got up, no doubt, at the expense and solicitation of 
Mrs. V., with the view of prejudicing the community there against 
me ; wherein he, with a vast deal of assurance, takes the opportuni- 
ty of puffing the Morrises, calling Mrs. V.'s farm and farm-house, 
" family mansion," and " broad acres, of her grandfather, General 
Morris, of the Revolution," &c, and all such gratuitous puffing and 
exaggerations, the more contemptible because they are altogether 
irrelevant to the case in question, and untrue, and which makes the 
Morrises still more ridiculous. 

Suppose I now let Master Mygatt know, that my sires, for centu- 
ries had " real " mansions and " broad domains " (instead of acres), 
and enjoyed higher titles than mere self -dubbed " generals " and 
" colonels," long before and after Mr. Morris was driving his cattle 
on the hills of Otsego. Where is Mr. Mygatt ? Nowhere ! It is 
true we all have a right to call our shanties " palaces," and a patch 



40 



of land " broad acres ;" and together with Mr. Mygatt's very limit- 
ed knowledge of these " things," he might have erred without mean- 
ing so to mis-apply " names." However, he will in the future bear 
in mind that " puffing " is an old " game," and " played out," and 
will do no good at all to his client. He can show his zeal to his 
employers in a more manly and professional way. I suppose these 
" imaginary broad acres and mansions " were resorted to as a kind 
of advertisement, to deceive the unsuspecting, and tempt them to 
the " net " like fishes, from which she will take her choice — but the 
" dodge " wont work this time ; it is played oat ! 

Mrs. Yence, determined to have every member of her family give 
some testimony or other against me, induced even her old father, 
Mr. Richard Morris, to make and swear to an affidavit, wherein he 
alleges '• that I have a most violent temper, which occasionally ends 
in personal violence." And that old man, that " member of the 
holy Church," that " would-be Christian," actually took his " oath" 
on the Bible to that statement (if the affidavit was sworn to at 
all). 

If Mr. Richard is not well enough acquainted with the English 
language to know the meaning of the words "personal violence," 
I will explain them to him ; they mean " to strike," " to inflict 
bodily injuries, either with the hand, feet, or weapon, on a person." 
Perhaps his unscrupulous daughter, Euphemia, took advantage of 
his dotage to make a tool of him, to serve her base purposes, by 
making him swear to a most deliberate and infamous lie. For I 
now ask him, when and where did he, or any of his family, ever see 
me " in a passion," even, much less u using personal violence" to 
any one, even to a beast ? And who is the person I used violence 
to ? and what is his or her name ? I dare him to prove it ; and if 
he has willfully, and in his good senses, made and sworn to this most 
rankly false affidavit, then I pronounce Richard Morris a contemp- 
tible old liar and a perjurer ; for I here swear, by the precious blood 
of our Saviour, that this, like all the rest of their affidavits, is the 
most infamous lie, concocted by those vile wretches, to insult, dis- 
honor, and tarnish a character, better in all respects than their own ; 
and may Richard Morris's lying tongue " rot" in his foul mouth. 

They also allege in their affidavit that so "violent am I, that I 
am at this moment under bail of $1,000, for threatening to take 
the life of a certain King," in Butternuts. Now, the truth is, 
that " during last summer, while sitting and talking to Mr. Morris, 
the Irish boy, Daniel Raddy, came in and told Mr. Morris in my pre- 
sence, that King has called him the " damnedest liar and rascal in 
this country," (owing to some difficulty about the interest on a 
couple of dollars lent to said King by Morris). I saw that Mr. 
Morris felt hurt at the insult before me. 

Some time after, while on a walk to the creek, I, by chance, met 



41 

this King's woman at her gate, talking to another woman, and very 
pleasantly told her to tell her husband that he has taken a great 
liberty in calling Mr. Morris a "damned liar and rascal;" that if 
he does it again I would slap his face for him. 

Now, I would like to ask you, would you, a young man, married to 
the daughter of this old man, see and hear him insulted by such a 
fellow as that King, or any other man, without feeling indignant 
at it, and even resent the insult ? "Well, at the time the family 
praised me for it, and denounced the impertinence of the fellow in 
" presuming" to bind me to keep the peace towards himself; and 
they themselves called this King a liar, for saying that I had a 
pistol with me (which article, by the by, I assure you I never 
owned in my life), and a certain lady member of the family even 
talked of " firing" his barn-house for his impertinence. But now, 
time has changed; they noiv make capital of this to try to debase 
me — so goes the world — hut I am enough for all of them. 

I do not mention this instance because I care to contradict their 
falsehoods, but I merely want to show their contemptible attempt 
to disguise the truth. 

I think when a man can say and prove that he has lived thirty 
years, and never was before a court or a magistrate, or in the least 
"difficulty" with any one in his life, before this present instance, 
it is saying a great deal more than they dare say. 

They think, and even say, that I am too poor to contest the 
case. So, they take advantage of that, to lie most infamously 
against me, thinking that I will never make them prove all they 
say ; but I assure them, as true as there is a God, poor or not, they 
shall answer for their offences to me, one and all of them. 

I must here observe to you, that they have resorted to all kinds 
of base expedients through their lawyer, " Mygatt," to take me by 
surprise, and get a separation by default. 

Some weeks ago, Mygatt served me with a " notice of trial," a 
few days before hand. Mrs. Vence, no doubt, having seen in the 
newspapers the departures of several of my important witnesses 
for Europe and other places, wanted to take advantage of it ; 
but I immediately served him with my affidavit that I could not 
safely proceed to trial without these witnesses, as they would not 
likely be back before October; and Mygatt, after receiving my 
affidavit and $10, turns around again and serves me with another 
" notice of trial," to come off on the 13th July, at Cooperstown, 
knowing that these witnesses are away. 

As Mygatt knows, and has expressed his fears, that there will be 
some very unpleasant disclosures made before the court on the trial, 
and wishes to avoid them — they are doing now all in their power 
to get a decree of separation by default, and to make you all be- 
lieve that I could not prove anything. 



42 

Therefore, I hereby give you fair notice, that if 'they get a separa- 
tion by default, it would be dishonorably and basely obtained, 
without my knowledge, consent, or desire, and I will hold them 
responsible before a higher court. They are trembling at the 
coming disclosures, and they would resort to any means, however 
bass, to prevent me from appearing ; and I here pronounce the 
whole affair, from beginning to end, a base conspiracy and a use- 
less farce ; for it cannot, and will not, avail them. 

With my best wishes, I am 

Your obedient servant, 

Augustus Vence. 

N. B. — Will any one have the kindness to let me know if Mrs. 
Vence or any of her family denies a word in my statement, that I 
may answer further ? 



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